When I was a kid, I didn’t really appreciate how gourmet our desert selection at home was. There was always an array of delicate, intricate desserts like baklava, galaktoboureko and biscuits like koulouria and kourabiethes to eat. This is the standard in a Greek household where your mum loves to bake traditional desserts. But sometimes I just wanted cake… “normal” cake that I imagined all my non ethic friends enjoyed. Enter the Greek style marble cake! I remember this particular family friend would always have it at her house when my parents went to visit. Naturally, I was thrilled. Here is the recipe for it. It’s delicious!
Ingredients:
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla powder (or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 cup olive oil
1 cup milk
1/3 cup icing sugar, optional
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 170 degrees fan.
In a medium sized bowl combine the cocoa powder, 1/2 cup of sugar and the hot water. Stir well to combine and set aside.
In another small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, vanilla powder and salt. Whisk until well combined.
In the large bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the remaining sugar (2 cups) and the eggs until well combined. Slowly pour in the olive oil and continue to mix.
With the speed set to low, carefully add 1/2 of the flour mixture to the oil/egg/sugar combination in the stand mixer. Beat until well combined. Pour in 1/2 cup of milk. Continue beating and then add the remaining flour, followed by the remaining milk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl using a rubber spatula and then beat well for a minute until all of the ingredients are well combined.
Remove approximately 3 cups of this cake batter and add it to the bowl which contains the cocoa powder, sugar and water. Using a whisk mix it well by hand so that all of the plain batter is combined with the cocoa batter.
Grease a bundt pan. Pour enough of the plain batter into the pan to cover the bottom surface. Then, using a large spoon, drop spoonful’s of the cocoa batter on top of the plain batter. Leave approximately 1/3 of the cocoa batter in the bowl.
Pour the remaining vanilla batter into the bundt pan, and then pour in the rest of the cocoa batter.
Bake in the middle rack of your oven for 50 – 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool in the bundt pan for approximately 5 minutes before removing it. Set it to cool on a baking rack.
When your cake has completely cooled, dust it with icing sugar.
*To change up the recipe, add the rind of 2 oranges into the vanilla portion of the recipe*